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When you have a dilemma in your life, the solutions, the answers, the strategies, and the magic are in the OBVIOUS – and yet the OBVIOUS is OBVIOUS to everyone but you!

It’s Common Sense and remember, Common Sense is very Uncommon.

Dr. Mitchell Perry

Embrace the Obvious

One of the most curious things about people is their difficulty in recognizing what’s right in front of their faces. Do you ever notice that when you are looking for your keys, they are in your hand? Or when you want to find your glasses, they are sitting right on top of your head? If there is one thing I have learned in life, it is this: “THE MAGIC IS IN THE OBVIOUS.” That means: the answer to your dilemma is often right in front of your face. Your job is to look and find it. Then… DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Example: If you tend to be pessimistic, how much time are you spending complaining or feeling sorry for yourself?

If your business is doing poorly, how much are you contributing to poor customer service? How much are you actually helping the customer be dissatisfied?

If your marriage is one where you feel emotionally malnourished, how much are you withholding nourishment yourself? Or expecting nourishment from a spouse who is ill equipped to give it to you?

If you are tired going up a flight of stairs, how much do you need to lose weight and get in shape?

The answers are often so obvious that we have trouble seeing them. What is even more curious is that everyone else can see what’s right in front of you except you.

So, what to do?

Ask yourself regularly, “What is obvious here? What do I need to see? What can everyone else see here that might be difficult for me to see or accept?”

ASK FOR HELP. Often you are so close to it, it becomes impossible to see the obvious. So, ask someone for whom you have respect and trust, “Help me see what is going on here… it is likely to be obvious and I am unable to see it.”

Then do something about it! CHANGE SOMETHING… your behavior, your contribution, your relationships, your habits, something… anything! Do something different and the situation will change.

So the message is this: Embrace the Obvious! There’s magic when you recognize what is right in front of your face, THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Today’s Tickle

PUN0GRAPHY

· I tried to catch some fog. I mist.

· When chemists die, they barium.

· Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

· A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is
now a seasoned veteran.

· I know a guy who’s addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.

· How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

· I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.

· This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore.

· I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I can’t put it down.

· I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

· They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type-O.

· This dyslexic man walks into a bra .

· PMS jokes aren’t funny, period.

· I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

· A cross-eyed teacher lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils.

· When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

· What does a clock do when it’s hungry? It goes back four seconds.

· I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!

· Broken pencils are pointless.

· What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

· England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool .

· I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

· I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

· All the toilets in London police stations have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on.

What thoughts come to mind? Admiration or disappointment? Respect or cynicism? Awe or let-down? Impressed or depressed?

Which is more likely, respect follows like or like follows respect? You are popular and likely therefore to be respected? Or are you respected and likely therefore to be liked? Which has a longer shelf-life, being liked or being respected?

If you really think about it… RESPECT HAS A LONGER SHELF-LIFE, and you are more likely to be liked and popular after you are respected.

Like most always follows respect. And, people will respect you MORE when you improve your own self-respect.

So strengthen your character and start with your own SELF-RESPECT. You either dilute it or build it up. It is up to you.

You either snatch a rationalization from the jaws of logic, or you go on the road less traveled and stick with your strong character.

At the end of the day, everything comes down to your character.

It’s Common Sense and remember, Common Sense is very Uncommon.

Dr. Mitchell Perry

Share Your Strength of Character

Every morning when you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Are you pleased or embarrassed? Proud or ashamed? Impressed or depressed? Excited or bored? Energetic or listless? Engaged or isolated? Powerful or weak? How is your self-respect?

Every morning, whether you like it or not, you wake up inside your own skin. You always wake up you, which means you are always there attending that party… so does it make any sense to you to dislike the person in the mirror? You are unable to get away from that person, which means you always have to live with yourself, your feelings, your choices, and your behavior. And, just like compounded interest in a bank account, there are long-term effects to those choices and behaviors.

At the end of the day, the measure of your life
is inevitably determined by your CHARACTER and all its strengths and weaknesses. So, what is the condition of your Character? What are your basic governing values? What are the basic governing principles by which you want to live?

The essential qualities for Strength of Character include:
INTEGRITY: Honesty, legitimacy, the straight stuff, the full disclosure; the willingness to be unpopular at times, by telling the truth; the absence of lying, tap-dancing, pretending, rationalizing, spinning, distracting and avoiding.
RESPONSIBILITY: Your life is completely your responsibility. If life is going well for you, you probably made it happen. If life is going poorly, you did that too. And if life is a whole new level of underwhelming… you did that too. The cards dealt to you are yours to play — good or bad. So take your lumps and get on with it. The energy you spend on whining, complaining, catastrophizing, awfulizing, and admiring the problems will be so much better spent on problem solving.
GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT: This part of your Strength of Character is about giving more than taking, contributing more than consuming, caring more than expecting, investing more than expensing, and forgiving more than condemning. This part of you is faith, living in the light, deriving meaning, and hearing the quiet. You get more than you give when you give more than you get. (Hmmm… random acts of kindness.)
So, establish a higher standard for yourself and your life. Commit to INTEGRITY, RESPONSIBILITY, and GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT… and then share your values and spread them around. You are quite a role model!

Raise your bar!

Today’s Tickle

One of the Greats

Lawrence Peter Berra played major league baseball for 19 years for the New York Yankees. He played on 10 World Series Championship teams, is a MLB Hall of Famer and has some awe-inspiring stats. His name is consistently brought up as one of the best catchers in baseball history, and he was voted to the Team of the Century in 1999.

Amazing accomplishments aside, they probably aren’t how you know Lawrence . You know him as Yogi, a nickname given to him by a friend who likened his cross-legged sitting to a yogi. Yogi is famous for his fractured English, malapropisms and sometimes nonsensical quotes. He’s closing in on 88, and there seems to be no end to his fans’ love for him.

Here are 25 Yogi Berra quotes that will make you shake your head and smile.

1. “It’s like deja vu all over again.”
2. “We made too many wrong mistakes.”
3. “You can observe a lot just by watching.”
4. “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
5. “He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.”
6. “If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.”
7. “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up some place else.”
8. Responding to a question about remarks attributed to him that he did not think were his: “I really didn’t say everything I said.”
9. “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
10. “I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house.”
11. On why he no longer went to Ruggeri’s, a St. Louis restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded.”
12. “I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”
13. “We have deep depth.”
14. “All pitchers are liars or crybabies.”
15. When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which is accessible by two routes: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
16. “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
17. “Never answer anonymous letters.”
18. On being the guest of honor at an awards banquet: “Thank you for making this day necessary.”
19. “The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.”
20. “Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.”
21. As a general comment on baseball: “90% of the game is half mental.”
22. “I don’t know (if they were men or women running naked across the field), they had bags over their heads.”
23. “It gets late early out there.”
24. Carmen Berra, Yogi’s wife asked: “Yogi, you are from St. Louis , we live in New Jersey , and you played ball in New York . If you go before I do, where would you like me to have you buried?” Yogi’s answer: “Surprise me.”
25. “It ain’t over till it’s over…..”

Listening! It’s what everyone wants in all relationships — business and personal — spouses want it most in each other, customers want it in customer service, bosses and subordinates want it from each other.

So what is going on?

Most of us spend our time rehearsing a response rather than listening to what was said… insanity!

So start learning to listen!

It’s Common Sense and remember, Common Sense is very Uncommon.

Dr. Mitchell Perry

Effective Listening

Are you a good communicator?

Communication Facts:
Effective Communication is fundamental to successful relationships – both personal and professional
We all communicate daily in some capacity to others
Most people are poor communicators
We get little if any training in effective communication
Yogi Berra once said, “Communication is 90% listening and the other half is talking.”

To the degree to which you can improve your listening skills you will immediately become a better communicator.

Listening is all about Selective Perception.

Selective Perception means viewing the world through a set of filters (culture, background, mood, attitude, emotions, etc.). You see what you want to see. You hear what you want to hear.

Keep in mind there are two levels of communication:

CONTENT — The Data — The Facts
What is said: This is the basic factual data, without
any packaging.

CONTEXT — The Intent — The Packaging
How it is said: When we notice context signals that
are more familiar to us, we naturally feel more
comfortable and have more rapport.

People respond far more to context than content so remain aware of the signals, the tone, volume, pitch, speed, expressions, body language, etc. We are all programmed to respond to contextual signals so be aware of the signals you are giving and receiving. They may convey a different message than you intend. In every conversation remain conscious of the speaker’s content and context to be sure you get the right message.

Learn to Listen! It is critical to make sure you understand others correctly. Effective listening generates the following results:
It reduces the margin of error on what we heard
It allows the person who was speaking to us to reduce their defenses and relax
It helps keep the interchange on track
Remember, Listening is the best way to get your point across!

Today’s Tickle

The following questions were set in last year’s GED examination.
These are genuine answers (from 16 year year olds)

Q. Name the four seasons:
A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar

Q. How is dew formed?
A. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire.

Q. What guarantees may a mortgage company insist on:
A. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed

Q. In a democratic society, how important are elections?
A. Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election.

Q. What are steroids?
A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs

Q.. What happens to your body as you age?
A. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental.

Q. What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty?
A. He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery.

Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes
A. Premature death

Q. What is artificial insemination?
A.. When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow

Q. How can you delay milk turning sour?
A. Keep it in the cow.

Q. How are the main 20 parts of the body categorized (e.g. The abdomen)?
A. The body is consisted into 3 parts – the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity.
The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal cavity contains the
five bowels: A, E, I,O,U.

Q. What is the fibula?
A. A small lie.

Q. What does ‘varicose’ mean?
A. Nearby.

Q. What is the most common form of birth control?
A. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium.

Q. Give the meaning of the term ‘Caesarean section’
A. The caesarean section is a district in Rome.

Q. What is a seizure?
A. A Roman Emperor.

Q. What is a terminal illness?
A. When you are sick at the airport.

Q. What does the word ‘benign’ mean?
A. Benign is what you will be after you be eight.

Q. What is a turbine?
A. Something an Arab or Shreik wears on his head.

To differentiate your brand… you must be entirely different from everyone else (instead of simply “better”) and your behavior most impacts the market, and their perception of you.

It’s Common Sense and remember, Common Sense is very Uncommon.

Dr. Mitchell Perry
Differentiating Behaviors
How are you different? What can you do to set yourself apart?

Introduce yourself

Stand, shake hands, and make eye contact

Personalize by addressing your customer by name

Be an expert in your business

Make frequent contact with your customer

Write thank you notes

Write personal notes (remember something special)

Fast recognition

Have a positive attitude about yourself, your position, and your company

Learn to listen: Ask more and tell less – listening is the best way to get your point across

Learn to express yourself optimistically

Keep every promise

Commit to check in and follow up often, then do it! Go the extra mile – deliver more than you promise

Use humor and smile often

Consider incorporating some random acts of kindness into the relationship

Become a trusted advisor

Be a tailor – continually “custom tailor” your relationship with them

How many of these traits differentiate you in the eyes of YOUR customer? Which ones do you need to work on the most? Which ones already come easily to you?

Consider the following: If you can find out what your customer wants in his terms and then find a way to give it to him, you will succeed where others fail. This is the secret to all effective sales efforts. Sales is less about selling what you have to your client, but all about encouraging your client to buy what he wants from you. Remember, you want to create “The Pull” and avoid the push.

Today’s Tickle

This is an actual job application that a 17 year old
boy submitted to McDonald’s in Florida… and they hired him because he was so honest and funny!

Name: Greg Bulmash

Sex: Not yet. Still waiting for the right person.

Desired Position: Company’s President or Vice President. But seriously, whatever’s available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn’t be applying here in the first place.

Desired Salary: $185,000 a year plus stock options and a Michael Ovitz style severance package. If that’s not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

Do You Have Any Special Skills? Yes, but they’re better suited to a more intimate environment.

May We Contact Your Current Employer? If I had one, would I be here?

Do You Have Any Physical Conditions That Would Prohibit You From Lifting Up to 50 LBS?
Of What?

Do You Have A Car? I think the more appropriate question here would be “Do you have a car that runs?”

Have You Received Any Special Awards or Recognition? I may already be a winner of the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.

Do You Smoke? On the job, no; on my breaks, yes.

What Would You Like To Be Doing In Five Years?
Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy dumb blond super model who thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I’d like to be doing that now.

Do You Certify That The Above Is True And Complete To The Best Of Your Knowledge? Yes. Absolutely.

Remember, when it comes to persuading others, there is a BIG difference between what is supposed to work and WHAT DOES. Use “The Pull” and LET THEM HAVE YOUR WAY.

Dr. Mitchell Perry

The Art of Ultimate Persuasion:
Engaging “The Pull”

When you are in a conversation with someone who is speaking, do you find yourself just waiting for him or her to stop talking so you can start? And, while you are waiting are you rehearsing your beautifully prepared gospel according to you?

How often are you trying to force-feed others with your opinions? Are you telling more than listening? Does it often seem frustrating that people resist your advice and refuse to change?

You know your intentions are good, and your advice is great! What gives? What is wrong with these people?

Well, remember what Stephen Covey says in his
7 Habits of Highly Effective People: “Seek first to understand, then be understood.” The message here is that you are much more likely to get others to change when they conclude it makes sense to do so. If you first understand them, they will be less resistant to your ideas and suggestions when you make them.

If you want others to change, you must ask first, and be prepared to listen.
1. Ask first what is important to them, what’s on their mind, how do they feel, what’s going on, etc.
2. Then listen. Understand, empathize, learn, and appreciate their position.
3. Then steer them to better conclusions.

It’s remarkable how much more receptive others will be toward your position when they have been heard first and understood.

So the message here is this: When you are interested in persuading others and the issues are important to you, FIRST ASK QUESTIONS AND LISTEN. When you do this, people will be less resistant to change and more likely to adjust their position and follow your suggestions.

When you “Pull” (instead of “push”) you “LET THEM HAVE YOUR WAY.”

Today’s Tickle

Murphy’s Lesser Known Laws
Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who use more powerful weapons.
The 50-50-90 Rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.
If you lined up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, in the fog.
The things that come to those who wait will be the things left by those who got there first.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in boat all day drinking beer.
Flashlight: a case for holding dead batteries.
The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.
A fine tax is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of people who lacked enough intelligence to get out of jury duty.

People hate to be sold stuff, and they love to buy stuff! Your job is to create a condition in which they want to buy.

Dr. Mitchell Perry

World Class Selling

Most people hate sales and salespeople… why? Because most salespeople are garden variety. What is “GARDEN VARIETY”?

They…

Sell too soon, which makes people uncomfortable and reluctant to proceed.

Ask the wrong questions, thus creating resistance.

Fail to get enough information, which puts the salesperson at a disadvantage.

Fail to create rapport, so the customer becomes agitated and manipulated.

Concentrate on the sale instead of the customer and the relationship.

But what do the BEST of the BEST salespersons know? And how do you become a World Class Seller? How do you separate yourself from the “herd”? The first thing you must understand is the psychology of selling:

“PEOPLE HATE TO BE SOLD STUFF,

AND THEY LOVE TO BUY STUFF!”

So how do you get your customers to let down their defensive guards and be open and ready to buy from you?

First, instead of your trying to sell the product or service, you must create a condition where your customer wants to buy. It requires skills and practice to create that condition.

Second, you must focus on your customers, understand their feelings, and build the necessary relationship glue.

Third, you must understand how your behavior determines the perception of value which your customer places on you and the relationship.

When the customer is convinced of the VALUE, the customer will buy — your behavior has a HUGE impact on that value.

And last, you must learn the communication tools necessary to get your customer to say “yes.”

When you master these skills, you will be able to sell with all the class in the world and you, too, will be “The Best of the Best!“

Today’s Tickle

Ever Wonder…

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?

Why women are unable to put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Why we have yet to see the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery”?

Why “abbreviated” is such a long word?

Why doctors call what they do “practice”?

Why you have to click on “Start” to stop Windows 8?

Why lemon juice is made with artificial flavor, while dishwashing liquid is made with real lemons?

Why the man who invests all your money is called a broker?

Why they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

Why they have yet to make a whole plane out of the material used for the indestructible black box?

Regardless of how happy and fulfilling your marriage or relationship is, inevitably you will encounter difficulties and disappointments along the way. Often times it is either because you have become emotionally malnourished, your relationship needs a tune-up, or perhaps the magic has faded. To rebuild a relationship that has gotten lost over the years, you need a clear, compelling picture of the relationship you want. Then you both must commit to creating and maintaining that partnership.

A relationship lives in words and action, much like a play. If your relationship has become its own version of a bad play, then to make a better play (relationship), you need to write and practice good scripts.

One way that you can create good marriage scripts is by figuring out what you and your partner want out of the relationship. In essence, it is time to “rewrite the screenplay.”

Start by having the following dialogue with your partner:

What do you want me to know about you? What do you want/need from me? (Attention, time, listening, etc.)

So you are in midlife and you notice life goes by so fast! What’s the point? What really matters anyway?Answer: Touching people’s lives and getting your life touched.

Dr. Mitchell Perry

Balancing Your Life

Most people want to be happy and successful. Ask yourself what that would mean to you. When you think of being quite happy what images come to mind? In addition, what does being very successful look like? Furthermore, what’s the point?

HAPPINESS IS CLOSENESS. When you think about experiences in life in which you were really happy, there were probably people in your memory and you were happy in large part because you felt CLOSE to those people. The closer you feel to people you care about, the happier you are. So, one objective in life is to establish, build, and maintain some quality and nourishing CLOSENESS in your relationships. Closeness is usually found and developed in your personal life.

SUCCESS IS ACHIEVEMENT. When you think of times in your life when you felt quite successful, you probably thought of things you achieved. Creating a goal and achieving it builds a solid sense of identity, strength, and autonomy. Continually achieving goals builds confidence and purpose which develops the self and creates independence. So, another objective in life is to continually realize success by realizing ACHIEVEMENTS. Success is usually found in your professional life.

CREATING BALANCE. Some form of balance between both dimensions of personal and professional life is essential for optimum success and happiness. People who are highly professionally successful (always achieving) but always personally unhappy (estranged, isolated, unconnected from people) are unbalanced on the success side. They often end up driven and angry. They must start creating valuable CLOSENESS to fix it.

Likewise, people who are personally very happy (close with significant people) yet very professionally unsuccessful (unable / unwilling to achieve anything) are unbalanced on the happiness side. They usually end up dependent, clingy, and fearful. They must begin to ACHIEVE things to fix it.

DEVELOP MEANING. Fulfillment in life comes when there is clear and evident meaning to your existence. Write down your basic governing values. Contribute something to society as part of paying the rent for your time here. Commit to something larger than yourself and watch the development of grace. Life is really about touching lives and getting your life touched as a result.

Develop closeness, commit to achieving, and life becomes balanced.

Then contribute to society in some way with your time, resources, and grace. Meaning emerges and so does fulfillment.

Today’s Tickle These are classified ads which were actually placed in U.K. newspapers:

I have been working with some of the biggest companies from around the world for over 35 years and inevitably I find that lack of productivity comes down to one thing — lack of Teamwork.

Teamwork is something that must be learned and practiced in order to be effective. And just like top sport teams have to practice the skills, so do you in your professional lives. I have noticed that most people are unaware of what really works when it comes to getting individuals to team.

Accepting and understanding the fact that people are different, and therefore, need to be treated as individuals is integral to the concept of teamwork. The most successful teams recognize their differing member’s opinions, experiences, and working styles as a source of strength to the team. Understanding the “style” of your teammates and applying them will increase levels of trust and credibility.

We have discovered what actually works when it comes to increasing team effectiveness. I call it STAR-D.

STARTTRUSTASKREINFORCE DIALOGUE

The STAR-D framework provides the skills to:

Shift the mindset from “you OR me” to “you AND me.”
Strengthen the “trust” between team members.
Capitalize on COOPERATION more than COMPETITION.
Reinforce the behaviors you wish to encourage.
Change the team dynamic through the use of language.
Empower your team by capitalizing on individual strengths.
Increase power.

Get results faster.
By learning and incorporating the skills of STAR-D the end result will be greater productivity and satisfaction for all team members.

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